Felted Bags

Finally got picture upload working again. Yippee!

Before Felting

After Felting

I'm still waiting for them to dry so I can add handles (belts).

Socks!

Yarn: Rocket Yarn DK Superwash Merino Sock Yarn in the Plasma Dip Greens method
Pattern: made it up as i went along, toe-up magic loop two-at-a-time, 3x1 ribbing and short row heel

Linkydoos ....

Mochimochi Shop - some really cute knit toy patterns.

Crafty Alien - really fun knit and felted animals and such

Socks!!!

I finally finished my affectionately named Ugly Socks. Yipee!!! It's gonna be a good week, I can feel it. A finished pair of socks to start it off, art class on monday and a new career move starting wednesday. Well it's not really a move, more of an expansion but either way i'm looking forward to it.

Free Pattern to Share

I came across this pattern and I'm adding it to my to-knit list so I thought I'd pass it along. It's based on the hat Mary Jane wore in Spiderman 2. Pithy Hat

Ravelry!

As if I needed yet another internet thing to steal my time away .... this Ravelry thing is way too much fun. I finally got my much awaited invite last week and was finally able to join in the fun. Now I have yet another reason to stay up until 2:30am. I love that I can see what other people have done with some random skein of yarn they own that I also have in my stash. I already found several things I want to knit and so my queue grows and grows.

I was having some technical issues with it until I remembered reading somewhere that they designed it to be run with Firefox, not Internet Explorer. Once I downloaded and installed Firefox, all my Ravelry problems went away. And I must say, i'm really digging Firefox. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy better than IE. If you don't have it ... you should. And it will automatically import all of your bookmarks and settings and stuff for you from IE so it's a seamless transfer. Now I don't have to deal with the annoying error messages I keep getting ever since I updated to the newer version of IE. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! :-)

If you're on Ravelry, look for me. I'm "Celena" ... original, I know.

Something Else I Must Knit

Totally stolen from Sharon's blog. The Harry Potter Book Scarf and Julie's Potholder.

Works in Progress for SP10

Another contest for SP10 ... we were asked to blog our works in progress. Here's a Booga Bag I made that I am STILL felting. I've run it through the wash four or five times already. That Kureyon is pretty hard to felt.

Here's another Booga Bag that's not quite finished yet. This wool felted really well ... only one wash cycle. I knit the I-cord handle thicker on this one so tyeing it on the sides isn't working so well. I have to figure out another solution. I'm gonna try sewing the two ends of the I-cord together to make one continuous loop. Just haven't gotten around to it yet.

And here's the ugly sock. Technically it's still a WIP but i'm going to frog it sometime soon. Just isn't working out in plain stockinette stitch. I've got some other options but i'm on to other things for now.

This one will be explained later.

And here's the Molly's headband I started at the river this past weekend. I made a little more progress on it last night after I took this picture ... probably about eight more rows.

River Knitting

Here's the knitting I managed to squeeze in at the river this past weekend.

I finished the hat last night. It's for my nephew-to-be that we should be hearing about any day now. I think Lyndi was due either yesterday or today.

Head Wrap Project

I'm considering using this merino/tencel sock yarn to make one of these head wraps. I really love the color of the yarn but I don't think I want socks that color. I'm not sure if this yarn will be too slippery for a head wrap though. Any of you knitters have any thoughts on this?

Click here to see a better picture of the awesome head wrap on the right in the pic above.

Ugly Socks

You'll have to forgive the bad pictures. The lighting and countertop color and shinyness were not working with me. I turned the flash off which ended up in blurry pics but you can still see how the colors are pooling. I'm starting to wonder if there was an error in their dyeing process on these. There's actually a neat pattern going on ... on two of the three "sides" of the sock. See top picture. It almost seems that there should be a tan area in the middle of the large brown blotch. See bottom picture.

What's going on? I'm stuck between frogging them and sticking the yarn back in my stash for another day and continuing the simple stockinette stitch for a while longer just to see what happens.

Knitting Progress, Booga Bags Questions & Crafty News

I was able to make some more progress on the gift for my nephews yesterday. I may actually finish before Christmas ... ha ha! I finished two squares and started another. So now only four and a half squares to go. And then the task of weaving in about 500 ends ... ugh! It's gonna be so cool though. I'm excited about it. I hope they love it and play with it for years. And one of the best things about it is that I can add to it later on to make it more challenging. (This will all make sense once I finish it and tell you what it is.)

I've received quite a few comments and emails about the Booga Bags. Yes, they are awesome, I know ... which is why I wanted to knit one. Which turned into two. Which will soon be three. And also what got me thinking .... and the thinking evolved into a project idea ... like I need more stuff to do, right? LOL! Let me first say, anyone who wants one ... I will be happy to knit one for you if you send me the yarn. So everyone who has asked me that, three so far I think, send me an email and we can talk about the yarn. The kureyon is pretty expensive but there are plenty of other feltable yarns that I can use. The blue one I made was a different yarn and it turned out great. I can do stripes or solid colors ... whatever you want. I love knitting them because they are what I call "mindless knitting" which means I can get them done quickly and can work on them while sitting with the kids. It's knit in the round so I just keep knitting and knitting and knitting without having to think about it much. And since it's a bag, it even holds the yarn for me once I get the bottom done. So no ball of yarn hanging around for Brody to grab onto. I was knitting one in a restaraunt recently and a woman came up to me and said "hey ... you're knitting the bag and using it too". She thought it was funny.

Crafty News, part 1: So back to the idea part. Ya'll know I love to dye stuff, right? And that I love to knit, right? And that i've been working on combining my two loves into dyeing yarn, right? Now you also know that I love bags, right? And do you know that i've always wanted to write a book and have worked on several ideas in the past? Well my recent Booga Bag knitting gave me an idea to combine all of these things. I'm designing my own bags all the way from the yarn dyeing to the knitting pattern. My idea is to design a yarn and bag with a person in my life in mind. Then combine them into a book of patterns. Now I know there are tons of books like this out there and that it will probably never get published. But ya know what? That's okay. If all I ever do is have some bound so I can give them out as gifts to my knitting friends then i've accomplished what I wanted to. I'm giving myself a year to complete this project. I want twelve bags so that's one bag per month. I don't have a lot of spare time on my hands right now but the boys are getting bigger and much more independent. It won't be long before I can send them both out into the back yard to play while I sit on the porch and work on my designs.

Crafty News, part 2: I'm starting an Etsy shop. If you don't know about Etsy, you should. It's an online marketplace for handmade goods ... as they say. You see, I decided after the last craft fair that I did ... that I wasn't going to do them anymore until the boys were older. It just wasn't fitting well for various reasons that I won't bore you with. So I decided to start getting rid of all the craft fair stuff I have. Well luckily I had not gotten rid of too much before I found out about Etsy. I'm going to list some of my better tie-dyed items as well as baby slings (i'm sold out now so those will be a little while) and my hand-dyed yarn. I'm also going to sell kits that contain the yarn and pattern for my bags, as I design them. Fun, no? Not like I need extra things to take up my time but part of the whole premise in moving here was that I got to take my life in a new direction. I wanted to be an aerospace engineer since I was about eight years old. I also have loved all things crafty since that time as well. The first doesn't leave much time for the second. Moving here allowed me to change direction and explore my crafty side instead of my technical side. And Brett has stood behind me 100% with all of it. Well okay, the technical side seems to follow me wherever I go. I never thought I would find myself still working as an engineer but from the comfort of my own home, as well as tutoring math ... also from the comfort of my own home. But hey, it pays the bills. And I still manage to find some crafty time. And believe it or not, there is definitely a technical side to the crafty things I take on. The chemistry of dyeing, for example, as well as the math involved in knitting patterns.

So the grand plan is to open a craft shop with a classroom area so I can teach and sell crafty stuff but that's in the long-term planning. One good thing about Lake City is that there is plenty of room for new ventures to pop up. And hey ... we're getting a Starbucks so people actually know we exist! Hee hee. Oh yeah, and don't even think about stealing my idea ... because that's just not cool. Well if you don't live in Lake City then steal away ...

Back to the bags idea for a moment ...
My first bag was the one I posted on sunday. I dyed the yarn with Miss Nancy in mind, hence the colorway "red nancy". She loves red so that was a given. There were several things behind that bag design. One being that it had to be quick. A weekend project. Nothing too fancy, just functional and easy to finish. Sort of a getting my foot in the door kind of thing. My thinking when working on that design was that I wanted it to be something to throw a paperback, some sunglasses and a tube of sunscreen in. I was picturing her throwing these things in at the river cabin and walking down to sit on the deck for a leisurely afternoon. It sits open kind of like a basket so it could sit next to her on the deck and be easy to reach into and grab what you want. (it can also double as a basket to sit on the counter and hold things) I would have prefered it to be just a tad bit bigger but I had to felt it down a little more to get it to stand on it's own. I plan to have a bigger version of the same bag in my book. That yarn is nice and thick so it makes a really sturdy bag. I'm looking forward to knitting the larger version and seeing how it turns out. One of the best things about these bags is that i'm giving them away to the person I designed it around once it's done. Exciting, no? I would love to learn how to spin eventually as well so maybe i'll end up with a design that started all the way from roving that I spun, dyed, designed and knit. Now that would be cool!

My First Design

So here's something i've been working on. This is my first knitting design.


Yarn: Paton's UpCountry, colorway is "Red Nancy" and was hand-dyed by Celena (that would be me) and let me just say that I am in love with this yarn. I've heard it may have been discontinued so i'm going to have to look into it. I did find a place to buy it online although thier shipping fees are outrageous so I'm going to keep looking.

Needles: US 15

Pattern: my own design, to be shared later

Here it is pre-felted. I just love, love, love how the color turned out. It is exactly what I was hoping for. I'm so excited about this. (I hope the recipient is half as excited as I am)


And here it is post-felting.

ps ... this is a hint of what is to come in the "crafty news" department

Knitting & Project Linus

Here's a picture of a blanket I donated to Project Linus last week.

I've done some yarn dyeing and my results are promising so far. I've been knitting bags like crazy over the past two weeks. I'm actually designing one as well. I plan to post the pattern here once I finish it. I really want to start another pair of socks when i'm done with the bags but I have to finish the gift for my nephews first if they are going to get it anytime this year. :) I'm holding off on releasing my crafty news until I get some other things finished. More on that some other time.

For SP10 we were asked to blog about our favorite place to knit. My favorite place to knit is always changing. It is wherever I can get a few minutes of peace. I prefer for that to be in the comfy recliner in the picture above with the blanket on it but that doesn't always happen. I often end up knitting in the car. Not while driving, of course. If I head out somewhere in the afternoon the boys are likely to fall asleep so I make sure to always bring some knitting with me. That way if they fall asleep I can sit in a parking lot somewhere listening to some music or a book on CD and do a little knitting while they nap. May sound strange but it's one of the only times I get a little peace and quiet.

Here's a picture of booga bag #2, pre-felted. I absolutely love the colors. I don't think i've ever seen a yarn that fits me any better. In fact, I may just have to keep this bag for myself. ;)

The Lone Knitta Interview

Knittas check this out. Thanks Megan. (btw, this is a different Megan than the one mentioned in the previous post)

More Stitch Markers!

I received my last two sets of stitch markers this weekend. I would have blogged about them and sent my thank you sooner but, well read the previous post and that should explain it all.

Here's a set from Megan. They are absolutely gorgeous! She enclosed a card that says they are made of amethyst with accent of aquamarine and peridot. I love purple so these are perfect for me. And they came in the cutest little red polka-dot bag. Thanks Megan!

And the next set is from Robyn. I was excited to find a set from her in my mailbox, all the way from Canada! She is the coordinator/creater of the Stitch Marker Exchange and she is also my hostess for the Secret Pal 10 exchange. I enjoy reading her blog. She is a stay-at-home mom for now too and I find a lot of similarity in our writings/thinking.

I was able to make a little progress on my first Booga Bag this weekend as I lay sick on the couch. It's completely mindless knitting as you just go around and around and around knitting each stitch so I was able to do a little on saturday while laying down. I worked on my nephews gift a little on saturday morning before the sickies set in. And speaking of which, I need to update my work-in-progress bars to the right. I'll do that after I finish this post. I was looking forward to getting more of that project done this weekend but it's intarsia and requires me to be sitting up reading a chart as I knit ... so that didn't happen. To tell you just how sick I was, as mindless as the Booga Bag is, I don't think I knit even one stitch on that on sunday. Now that's pretty bad.

Stitch Marker Exchange

I've really enjoyed participating in the stitch marker exchange. I might even join the next round. I signed up for three partners and sent my stitch markers out last weekend. Here are the markers that I made.




I've received great feedback so far about my stitch markers. Robin posted here and here about the "Fields of Green" markers I sent to her. Seems like she really likes them. They were my favorite out of the three sets I made. I also sent some to my secret pal but I can't blog about that yet for fear that she will figure out who I am and then I wouldn't be her "secret" pal anymore, now would I? :) Julie posted here and here about the markers I sent her. What a great picture she took! My third pal was Sulah. She is blogless but she sent me a nice email about the markers I sent her. She was the recipient of the "Romantic Hearts".


I've only received one of my three sets so far so i'm anxiously awaiting the mail each day, hoping to find some handmade goodness in the mailbox. I got a great set of stitch markers from Crissy with some beautiful glass beads. In fact, i'm actually using one of them already on my first Booga Bag.

And speaking of stitch markers, I found the cutest stitch markers on Etsy. They are sheep ... check them out here. Just too freakin' cute!

Booga Bag

Like I need something else to knit ... Booga Bag

But I just LOVE the looks of this bag, and well, a woman can never have too many handbags. Just ask my closet. And what a great gift to make as well. Now all I need is a never ending supply of Kureyon yarn. I think my Lizard Ridge yarn is going to turn into Booga Bag yarn. I have much better chances of actually finishing (and using) an awesome tote bag over an afghan.

In other news, Houston has been a little terror for going on about two weeks now. I hope this phase ends soon otherwise I am going to absolutely lose my mind ... what's left of it anyway. I had to send him to his room at least ten times today. And I can't get anything done that takes more than two minutes worth of focus. I can't even eat breakfast or lunch without him being crazy requiring me to get up and deal with something every three or four minutes. It's driving me bonkers! It's times like this that I consider giving up on this whole stay-at-home mom thing and going back to work.

Calling All Knitters .... Knitart

I have an idea in the works. Brett usually says "uh oh" as soon as I say that. I, however, think this is a great idea. But maybe it's not. Maybe it's a lousy idea. Maybe it's a super idea. I would like to know what other knitters think. So i'll start with the background and basis for the idea ...

I'm doing some major spring cleaning and what i'm calling "life clutter clearing". I'll try to make a very long story a little shorter here so please bear with me. I've realized (and i've posted about this before) that I hold onto things as a way of holding onto that part of my life. I've also realized how much this is weighing me down and i've decided to get rid of a lot of "stuff". I no longer want to be surrounded by what I used to be or wish I still was. I want to be surrounded by things that inspire me, things that fit my life now, things that make me happy, things that inspire my creativity, etc. As part of this i've been doing a bit of redecorating. I've taken down old pictures and i've hung new things on the walls. The latest of which is a crocheted ribbon shawl in just the right colors for our family room. I've also had an idea waiting in the wings of a piece of "knitart". I just haven't had the time to work on this project yet.

So here is where the "calling all knitters" thing comes in ... and I hope I describe it well enough that you all know what i'm saying ...

I want to make a piece of knitted art to hang on the wall, well two actually, one for the kitchen and one for our bedroom. My idea is to knit strips and weave them together to make a wall hanging. I got the idea of using strips from a baby blanket I saw once on Knitty Gritty. It's a good way to use up leftover yarn and yarn that I just don't want to knit anything wearable out of. It's also a good way to practice a new stitch, a cable, a lace pattern, etc. I'm thinking of making each one of these 2' x 3'. So I need to knit (or get help knitting) a bunch of strips that are either 2 feet or 3 feet long. Or maybe I should make it a square so everyone can stick with one length. As for the width of each piece, I would like them to be anywhere from 1 inch to five inches across. I want a good variety and therefore don't want them to all be the same width. Make sense?

And here's some more background for you ...
Since I started knitting a little over a year ago, I've been amazed by the knitting community. Both online and in person. It really brings people together and i've met some really great people this way. I just can't say enough about it. Knitters are some of the most generous people i've ever met. And what a wonderful craft to keep alive and well in the age of machines doing everything faster and cheaper. So how cool would it be to have some of that knitterly love and inspiration hanging right here in my house? I think it would be just great. So I thought i'd send it out there and see what kind of a response I get. I guess only time will tell ....

And here are some more details for you ...
Our kitchen is red (more dark, burnt red and burgundy than bright red but i don't think it really matters), green and tanish-brown (is that a color?). I would love strips in those colors or anything you think would gel with those colors.
Our bedroom is brown, blue and white. Any shade of those will do.

If you are feeling crafty and would like to help or want to tell me what a bad idea this is (hope not) or just have something to say about it, then either leave a comment to this post or email me at celenam [at] intergate [dot] com. Thanks and happy knitting!

Oh yeah ... and i'll be sure to track the progress here so everyone can see how it's coming along.

Favorite Knitting Accessory

For Secret Pal 10 we were asked to blog about our favorite knitting accessory, so here it goes ...

First off, I don't have many knitting accessories to speak of. I have a cable needle that I still haven't used, a row counter that I still haven't used, and a retractible tape measure that hangs around the neck. One of these days I'm going to get a pair of those handy little folding scissors that also hangs around the neck. Until then I will borrow someone else's at SnB or use my big scissors while at home. That being said, my favorite knitting accessory has to be the retractible tape measure for two reasons.

1. I like to knit patterns that tell you to knit until item measures X number of inches versus having to count rows. The tape measure is right there for me when I need it.

2. It serves as a great distraction for the boys. When i'm knitting and they are trying to pull on my yarn all I have to do is hand them the tape measure and they are entertained for a good ten minutes, allowing me to finish the row i'm working on before stopping to attend to their needs.